I Vow

I vow to love you
But I am afraid
My heart and soul are wounded
The only team sport I play
Is on a field far from home


I only play to win
I cannot go the distance with you
Only watch from the sidelines
Making occasional comments or
Racing in to change a prop or two
I cannot truly participate
For what would happen if I bound my soul to yours
And lived as if two were one?
No, the risk is too great
I will pretend instead I have nothing to offer
And keep secure the illusion I am free

I vow to be with you
Until somewhere I’d rather be takes me away
My commitment is steadily unstable
Like vapor, my interests rise and dissipate
I make you wrong for wanting more
I minimize your intelligence and worse
Your evolution

People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones
This is true
The stones I throw shatter and destroy me
I am impoverished
Yearning to be alive in the deepest ways
I walk with fear as my companion
Abandoning courage for false security
I cannot love with abandon
Ever counting the return on my investment

I have built a compound
Of lofty ideas that will never take root
While thirsting for waters of love actualized
And out of my emptiness without you
I embrace the unthinkable

Gone Away

“I’m going to make myself an aged sharp cheddar and vine-ripened tomato grilled cheese sandwich. I’ll slather it with real Dijon mustard from Dijon, France, and pair it with a Black Butte Porter.”

And so ends another day with this kind of intimate self talk, inaudible to me and to the swarm of spirits that surround me. I hope to hit the pillow by 3 am, so I can rest enough to meet the demands of the following day with grace and presence.

As a hospice nurse, I hand off people to the arms of the Invisible, but some days, I work other places in the hospital. Yesterday evening was such a time. She was nearly 90, but still beautiful. Her blindness had come on suddenly, unexpectedly, and no cause could be found. The ashes of her former world gave rise to other worlds, most of which terrified her. I hear in report she had tried to find a way out: a telephone cord wrapped around her neck, pillows in smothering places, to name a few. I had to remember she was the one out of 20-odd patients in my care who could not see me. I remembered to speak gently, to touch softly, as I approached her. I hoped that my voice would find her somewhere, and that we would meet in a place that mattered.

Our first encounter went well enough; she opened her mouth as I spilled in the pills and raised a cup of water to her lips. I poured in an indeterminate amount of water to wash them down. Too much, and she would choke on the water; too little and she would choke on the pills. She swallowed. She now knew my name and the sound of my voice. She knew the feel of my hand upon her shoulder. I hoped that this would be the beginning of something positive. The psychiatric team had come earlier in the day to “make a deal” and get her to agree to not harm herself while in our care. I always felt that odd. I would say, “Sure, yes, I promise” then, proceed as planned. Are promises to strangers binding? Maybe better to say,

“Look, if you try to kill yourself and succeed, it is going to create a big problem for me with no end of paperwork and maybe, depending on how you kill yourself, I and countless others will be traumatized, maybe even for life. And all you will have done is created more of you, more people walking around with unresolved trauma. If you were alive, you’d have company, but you’d be dead, watching from a cloud and believe you me, you’d feel bad then. You’d feel real bad, and sad, and you couldn’t do anything about it because you’d be dead. So, don’t kill yourself, it’s just not okay. Hey, can you HEAR me?”

Later, one of the other nurses came out to find me. Mrs. L was not responding. Her hands were clenched in tight little fists, her eyes squeezed shut. I managed to get my hand in hers, as she relaxed her fingers ever so slightly to welcome this stranger she barely knew. I cast an invisible golden line into the ocean of her being to hook her soul and bind it to mine, to reel her back in, but it fell into empty waters. She had gone away. With eyes tightly shut, hands clenched, breathing even and regular, vital signs stable, she had gone away. I told her it was okay, that she could come out again, that it was me, the night nurse, and all was safe. But what did I know? The plain fact of the matter is I do know. I have gone away. I have successfully deadened all that is inside and outside of me. I have been stone cold dead and by the grace of the Invisible, have thawed from my winter of terror and re-blossomed in the spring of possibility. It is alchemy of the highest order. Some go to never return. Others visit willingly. Most are swept inside by a current they cannot control. We would all go away if our world became frightening enough.

We took her to the emergency department. Their attempts to bring her back into our world were the same as ours, only harsher. She only gave them a faint grimace and went back the way she came.

It's Still Winter Somewhere

Like a 5 year-old kid on Christmas Day, I awoke with an awe and wonder uncapped and ready to explode. Barely light, my siblings are still soundly sleeping. I take a peek into their bedroom to make sure. The door is wide open and I need a body count. Perhaps one of them is up to share in my joy. I counted—one, then two lumps under the down comforter. Careful not to wake them, I slowly retreat; gin martinis and a full-bodied Italian dinner the night before had set them into a deep rest.

I realize I am idealizing winter. But this white blanket of finery that decorates everything it touches has touched me to the core. It’s as if I am the very same as the barren tree, held up only by grace and the roots of my years of living. But I am also the great white blanket of compassion that covers the earth, the strong, majestic peaks of the snow-covered range, the infinite stretch of possibilities on the horizon.

There is a wholesome silence here, the very same silence that is of me. We resonate together, that great vast silence and my own. It comforts me and reminds me I am whole. Feeling like sacrilege, I take gentle steps as I make my way through the snow. Fear of falling on ice makes me aware that not all winter conditions are friendly. Some of them insidiously catch us unaware. But this newly fallen snow beckons me.

The sound of timid crunching underfoot is the only sound heard as I make my way toward the pasture. The horses are lined up at the trough, looking pretty much the same as they always do. No bird makes its presence known.

Out on the open plain a single cow moos somewhere in the distance: the light is coming.

Disappearing Act

Today is Easter Sunday, 2010, a day celebrated by Christians worldwide as the day when Christ rose from the dead. I appreciate the fact that he is able to do this conveniently on Sundays, each and every year, as most people have the day off.

This the ultimate disappearing act, an act where the mystery of God is revealed: Jesus dies, disappears, reappears, and ascends. This part gets really confusing. There seem to be many different accounts of how this actually happens, and we are missing plenty of details.

I have no idea why today is not called “Disappearance Day,” or DD for short. The stone was rolled away and the body of Jesus wasn’t there. Plus, even if he were raised from the dead on the 3rd day it wouldn’t be on Easter Sunday if he died on a Friday. Count the days: Friday to Saturday is one, Saturday to Sunday is two.

Resurrection and ascension are two different things. Being raised from the dead is resurrection. Ascension is where Jesus returns to heaven to live with God on a permanent basis. There is an apparent span of 40 days or so in between the two during which time Jesus “appears” to his followers. And then, poof, he’s gone.

I find it interesting that no Gospel gives a definitive accounting of the resurrection of Jesus; we are left to come up with our best guess. Nor are there precise accounts of reappearances after his death. Or why he chose to appear to some and not others. We still have this query today, over 2000 years later. What we do seem to know is that there was an empty tomb.

As was customary of the time, women would visit the tomb on the first day of the week. “Wait a second,” they said. “Who rolled this humongous stone away?” “Hey, look! He’s not here!” Apparently sometime shortly after that, Jesus appears to at least one of them (Mary Magdalene) and instructs her to inform his disciples that he is alive and well.

Jesus had a fondness for women, in very fact (if we are to believe in any of this at all), he appeared to them first. He loved Mary Magdalene, his mother, Mary, Aunt Elizabeth, Grandma Anna, and so on. Yet the Christian tradition has successfully oppressed women since his death. Well, actually before, during and after. This makes me like Jesus all the more. Blood drips out of my pores when I see so-called Christians treat women, or anyone for that matter, in a way that would have made Jesus weep. And it’s not just men who do this. Many “Christian women” look upon non-Christian women with disgust, disdain, and a truckload of judgment. And to top it off, the four gospels have it that the risen Christ commissioned women to teach men! Well, let’s just skip over that part. It’s not important. God picked a man to be his representative and that's final. Who would have believed a woman, then or now?

Like Jesus, we will all descend into the abyss before our ascension into another dimension of being, a dimension far more transcendent than any we can know in human form. Until that time, we remain on earth and watch as our loved ones disappear before our very eyes, sharing the same disbelief as the women at the tomb. And when our own bodies are whittled away by the ravages of disease, sucked dry by the vampires of bodily pain, we will no doubt find women at our sides. For women have an amazing capacity to witness, to enter into the darkness of others, and to offer a cup of love to the thirsty. It is no accident that Jesus picked them to carry the message of love.

You will not find me in church today. My resurrected Jesus will be found at the bedside of a dying friend, in the joy of a child discovering a hidden Easter egg, in the warm lick of a dog’s tongue across my cheek, and in the singing celebration of the birds.

My Easter is right here, all around me.

Helping Hands

For the few remaining readers who haven’t thrown themselves in front of an eighteen-wheeler after reading my last two blogs, read this: I vow to be more positive, at least for today.

Sure, I get angry when I see injustice and abuse, enraged at people and systems that try to squash the life out of others due to their own need to survive. You all get that about me.

Just yesterday I heard, “Why can’t she say anything nice?” Though not directed at me, I took it to heart. So here I am, the first early bird of what’s not yet morning, breathing in the crisp, winter air, grateful to be alive.

What’s good about we humans is our willingness to care about others. As a former nurse specializing in end-of-life care, I have witnessed countless people broken by illness -- financially, emotionally and physically. When I have been injured or sick and unable to care for myself, it has been my friends who have brought me back to life and contributed to my healing.

The response to the catastrophic earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12 has been overwhelmingly positive; the outpouring of financial aid, given the economy, astoundingly generous. According to Stacy Palmer, editor of The Chronicle of Philanthropy, as of January 21, 2010—less than 10 days after the quake --- over 305 million dollars had been donated, and that’s only to American charities. Over 25 million of these dollars was donated to the Red Cross via text messaging alone! The immediacy of response in disasters is critical; it doesn’t help much to offer a hand weeks or months later. The world pulled together to help perfect strangers as if they were kin.

I like the term communitariansim. Communitarians argue that there is a need to balance individual rights and interests with the interests of the community as a whole. We are shaped by the values and the cultures of our communities, which is why I haven’t broken into your house and eaten your chocolate or taken the air out of your tires at the dog park because you refused to share it (see Evil). My parents, teachers and peers taught me that stealing was wrong (although they never mentioned anything about tires). A healthy society must balance liberal rights with community responsibility, in other words, too much individualism can be a bad thing.

In Green Valley, Arizona, we tend to help one another out. Green Valley has been called a) God’s waiting room; b) a great place to live; c) an active adult retirement community; d) a really bizarre place. Given the fact that there is no real infrastructure to age-in-place, if your health declines you will either move back to Minnesota to live with your son or if you have any, deplete your assets and move into a pricey assisted living facility.

Aging people have more health issues and therefore more need for community. My friend Lee, who died a month shy of her 100th birthday, abhorred the idea of community. Community implied people, in numbers, and the very thought of it made her recoil in disgust. Ultimately, she was unable to survive without the help of it, a chain unbroken that helped her step through death's door.

Most of my closet friends are women living alone. Correction -- women living alone with dogs. We take turns getting sick and having problems. One such friend now needs help. Together we join hands in support, forming a community of Light to reach out in known and unknown ways. An email to a world renown expert asking for help, a few slices of quiche, a call, an encouraging word, or just being present. We need one another; if it is not our turn today, it will be one day.

There was never an expectation of a response to the email asking for direction and advice, just a stab-in-the-dark hope. After all, these doctors are too busy to reply to a outsider asking for help. Surprisingly, in less than 12 hours, a response arrived: My mother died yesterday, heading to Prague, if you still need help, call me next week, see phone below. JP

In the grip of grief, a stranger reached out to help someone in need. We are some amazing beings, we humans. Together we join hands in support, forming a community of Light to reach out in known and unknown ways.

I am encouraged.

Left with Memory, Not Life

She sleeps and has no memories to speak of. But I am cloaked in memory. These are the garments from childhood and beyond, strewn about my home as reminders of who I am and where I have come from. The Girl Scout uniform in all its glory, the floral furniture, the Queen Elizabeth lamp I coveted as a child, and even the 5,000 ton mechanical bed that bore sole witness to my mother’s final breath. The massive fire of 1962 erased all evidence of life before.

Each and every piece of physical evidence we carefully collect and display evokes a mind-trace to what went before; they are our bread crumbs stored up for a rainy day, our love letters sealed and preserved just in case we forget that we were once deeply loved.

Some of us feel mandated to preserve our own memories and the memory of others at the cost of living life. Some say remarrying after the death of a spouse is the ultimate betrayal. Getting rid of Granny’s homemade quilt running a close second. Take my house, for example. In it, lives the memory of two mothers, former deceased occupants I never met, discarded pottery from 2nd graders I never knew, oil paintings of strangers once in love. Forages through thrift shop rubble, flea markets and street fairs reveal treasures calling out for homes and the reverence due them. And so it is that we find ourselves surrounded by objects d’art that bind us to memory lest we forget we are a part of the collective.

Alcoholics clutch their drink, drug addicts their heroin, shoppers their acquisitions, spiritual seekers their illusions, each grasping for something that they believe will make all-things-right within. It is never enough. In our effort to bring newness into life and breath to the stagnation of our past, we reach out into the yet-to-be in search of unborn memories that give us temporary reprieve.

I once had a lover who gave me Puakenikeni, an intensely fragrant, but fragile Hawaiian flower. I saved every blossom. Dried and wilted, brown and aged, I kept them for years, a sacrilege to toss them away.

The flowers are finally gone, but I’m having a heck of a time getting rid of those love letters. Maybe in the Spring.

Evil

“Evil is the exercise of power to intentionally harm (psychologically), hurt (physically), or destroy (mortally or spiritually) others.”

Phillip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect

I believe that people are not inherently evil. Evil, as Zimbardo defines it, is the deliberate misuse of power to the detriment of others. Like a cancer, it grows until it ultimately affects one’s ability to function healthily, thrive spiritually, and be a positive influence in the world. Evil, like sin, is “missing the mark,” or as other traditions might put it, focusing on and identifying with the wrong things. Someone under “The Lucifer Effect” might start out with good intentions, but ultimately succumb to the dictates of his ego.

There are few weightier crimes than feigning a life of spirituality yet persisting in acts that are meant to harm or destroy others. Many of these self-proclaimed spiritual people rise to power and have caused entire civilizations to fall, for the seed of selfishness is one persistent son-of-a-bitch and hard to eradicate.

As the story goes, Lucifer was beloved of God and handsome to boot, but power hungry, greedy and selfish, not unlike we humans. “God is good and dwells within us,” says the charlatan priest after committing an unspeakable act. The Devil apparently does too. When we do good things, we may say that God deserves the credit, but when we commit acts of harm, it is the devil within us that has caused us to fall. While there is still an ego-self ready and waiting for personal gain and glory, or even the rejection thereof, there will be problems. There will be suffering. There will be division.

Every harsh word spoken is a boomerang back to our own hearts. When our hearts are made of steel, we cannot feel their impact. As our hearts soften, the barbs of our speech fly back and cut into us. We bleed. In short, we harm ourselves the most when we intend to cause harm to others.

When newly in love, we overlook the signs that herald abuse, immaturity, and self-centeredness. We want to see the best in others and so we believe what they say and what they promise, often discounting what they do. Within them we see a golden vessel of love, albeit obscured in excrement caused by the pain of living, by repeated disappointments, by fear, greed, and selfishness. If we were simply to observe, we would see clearly. But years go by and nothing changes, except perhaps a few pieces of excrement get washed away by time, by chance.

Forgiveness is a difficult concept. How do we forgive someone who intentionally causes us harm? It does not mean forgetting, nor does it mean providing infinite chances to those who say they intend no harm but continue to act to the contrary. Forgiveness means understanding the pain that drives us to do harmful things. To see it clearly for what it is. It means releasing that pain in ourselves, the pain that might cause us to harm others. If we truly honor ourselves, we can not allow others to to harm us. Certainly, some are held captive without possibility of physical escape, yet even they can find sanctuary within where no harm can enter.

In clearly seeing suffering we see the root of what we call evil. And these roots are deeper than we can possibly imagine. Buddhism teaches that it is not the mind alone that must be trained; the heart must also be opened. An open heart without wisdom is doomed. A sharpened intellect without true compassion, worthless.

Be wary of those who call themselves spiritual but have their own interest at heart. While there may be a glimmer of truth in what they say, watch and wait and see what they do. Wish for them the fire, that they too may be robbed of everything but empty equanimity and infinite kindness. For if man cannot see and feel the ripple of his actions and intent upon the world, he is blind.

To see, to feel, and to ultimately understand the nature of suffering, guides us in ways no teacher or teaching can. It is simple and always with us. There is no price to be paid for what is already ours. Yet we often give people in power our trust, our hearts, and sometimes our lives. Entrusted to preserve the myth they market as Truth, they feed upon those thirsty for solution, saying they have special training or powers. Yet, they too are human, many suffering far more than those who kneel before them to receive a blessing.

Why, o spiritual seeker, do you continue to drink from a golden vessel covered in excrement? You alone must realize your own truth. Remove neediness and grasping. Do not look outside yourself. You are sufficient as yourself. Deep within you is the pulse of your divine wisdom, ever beating. Realize it and be free.